132 gastric carcinomas were examined immunohistochemically with McAb to p53 protein in order to investigate the relationship between the expression of p53 protein and histological differentiation of gastric carcinoma, and to approach the mechanism of infiltration and metastasis of gastric carcinoma. The results showed thai nuclear expression of p53 protein was significantly related to tumor size, depth of invasion, lymph node and liver metastases; but not related to histological differentiation, it is suggested that the accumulation of p53 protein was increased with the progression of gastric carcinoma, and therefore the cancer clone with p53 gene mutation may play an important role in the development of tumor invasion and metastasis.